Wednesday, January 30, 2008

60s Rochester!

Part I of "Rochester Through the Ages":

Pop Wilmot was so far out! He also seems like someone Warhol would/should have been obsessed with. Because he was crazy and gross, and Warhol was kind of crazy and gross too. (PS - fake photoshop that you download for free is sort of the greatest, even if you suck at it. Check out the program here.)

Things you should know about 60s Rochester: He invented Pop Music. He filmed the Kennedy assassination. He was the first man to walk on the moon. He never went steady with anybody, but wooed ladies with his new "free love" philosophy. As has been noted before, the syphilis was also free. He totally did Marylin Monroe, but also Lady Bird Johnson. He singlehandedly ended the Cuban Missle Crisis. He invented the Internet. He died of a mescaline-related hallucinatory accident after reading Huxley's Doors of Perception.

4 comments:

First of all, after reading that poem, "oyster-cinder-beggar common whore" is my new favorite epithet.I have to say, I really love Pop Wilmot. Warhol did a Pop Goethe that I love, and although I'm sure Goethe and Wilmot would hate each other in real life, I'd like to think that their pop versions would be able to hang out together. Also, I watched the entire series of those "You suck at Photoshop" videos. I don't know why, but they just didn't seem to get old.

ye olde Mission Statement

Many of you may know of the Internet phenomenon that is LOLCats. Slightly less of you may know how crazy/awesome early modern woodcut illustrations and frontispieces can be. But what joins these two disparate worlds? Well, it may surprise you to know how popular LOL-ing was in the Renaissance. To wit:

"The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling, / From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause; / Cries 'Excellent!'"--Troilus and Cressida (1.3.163-5)

Shakespearean proof you can't refute! Welcome to LOL Manuscripts!-----------------------------------------(P.S. I know they aren't all "manuscripts," but LOL Early Modern Printed Materials didn't have the same ring to it. LOLNomenclature! Let it go.)